I've reviewed a Godfrey Ho film before on this blog, and I am likely to review many more in the future. But this one will be different.
You see, a friend and I decided to watch four Godfrey Ho films in a row, to see what affect it had on our insanity. And it was part way through this, the last of the four, that I realized I had gone insane. I could not comprehend what I was seeing. And what I was seeing was this: An actual dramatic story-line with developed characters.
Let me set the scene for a moment. Our main character, a White Ninja (both in the fact that he's wight, and his ninja outfit is white), has been sent on a mission to go after a bad-ass drug smuggler played by Jonathan Isgar (who played the old man in Thunder Ninja Kids in the Golden Adventure). He was chosen for the mission as he and Jonathan Isgar fought together in Vietnam.
For the first 2/3rds of the movie, it was pretty standard Godfrey Ho fair. However, I knew things were taking a shift into new territory when, after the White Ninja breaks into Isgar's camp, one of Isgar's henchmen suggest he shoot the White Ninja. Isgar shrugs, grabs a gun, and shoots the goddamn ninja. The White Ninja is wounded but not killed. He's tied up by Isgar's henchmen and questioned.
However, when they take off his ninja mask, Isgar recognizes him as his old war buddy. He unties him and they share a meal and drinks together, and reminisce on the old days. We see flashbacks of how Isgar acted as a distraction so that the White Ninja (before he was a ninja) could escape. This lead to Isgar getting captured, but Proto-White-Ninja lead a daring rescue operation to get him back.
We then get Isgar's motivation. He feels like they were left behind by a country they served with no longer cares about them. The villain goes on a monologue that covers everything from what he was forced to become in the Vietnam war to how many of his fellow soldiers couldn't cope when they got back to the states.
It is then we see the genius GENIUS of Mr. Ho. Isgar, clearly distressed, asks the White Ninja if he heard about the death of one of their former squad-members. It is here we see the difference between the hero and villain of this movie. While the villain has let this effect him on an emotional level, the hero seems almost unphased by the death of his friend. The hero has continued to work for the government, and has lost his humanity, whereas Isgar has gone renegade and retained it.
Thus, at the end of the movie, when the two friends finally had to become enemies again, we are left with their backstory to give their fight significance. When the White Ninja shouts, with tears in his eyes, at his former comrade in arms to stop running, that he'd have to shoot him if he ran, all while aiming a slingshot at his old friend, whose arms were restrained by a hoop...I knew I had seen something important.
You would never hear the likes of Godfrey Ho mentioned in the same sentence as people like Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles, and Francis Ford Coppola, but I am about to.
Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles, Francis Ford Coppola and Godfrey Ho have all directed films.
-Alec Stamos
You see, a friend and I decided to watch four Godfrey Ho films in a row, to see what affect it had on our insanity. And it was part way through this, the last of the four, that I realized I had gone insane. I could not comprehend what I was seeing. And what I was seeing was this: An actual dramatic story-line with developed characters.
Let me set the scene for a moment. Our main character, a White Ninja (both in the fact that he's wight, and his ninja outfit is white), has been sent on a mission to go after a bad-ass drug smuggler played by Jonathan Isgar (who played the old man in Thunder Ninja Kids in the Golden Adventure). He was chosen for the mission as he and Jonathan Isgar fought together in Vietnam.
For the first 2/3rds of the movie, it was pretty standard Godfrey Ho fair. However, I knew things were taking a shift into new territory when, after the White Ninja breaks into Isgar's camp, one of Isgar's henchmen suggest he shoot the White Ninja. Isgar shrugs, grabs a gun, and shoots the goddamn ninja. The White Ninja is wounded but not killed. He's tied up by Isgar's henchmen and questioned.
However, when they take off his ninja mask, Isgar recognizes him as his old war buddy. He unties him and they share a meal and drinks together, and reminisce on the old days. We see flashbacks of how Isgar acted as a distraction so that the White Ninja (before he was a ninja) could escape. This lead to Isgar getting captured, but Proto-White-Ninja lead a daring rescue operation to get him back.
We then get Isgar's motivation. He feels like they were left behind by a country they served with no longer cares about them. The villain goes on a monologue that covers everything from what he was forced to become in the Vietnam war to how many of his fellow soldiers couldn't cope when they got back to the states.
It is then we see the genius GENIUS of Mr. Ho. Isgar, clearly distressed, asks the White Ninja if he heard about the death of one of their former squad-members. It is here we see the difference between the hero and villain of this movie. While the villain has let this effect him on an emotional level, the hero seems almost unphased by the death of his friend. The hero has continued to work for the government, and has lost his humanity, whereas Isgar has gone renegade and retained it.
Thus, at the end of the movie, when the two friends finally had to become enemies again, we are left with their backstory to give their fight significance. When the White Ninja shouts, with tears in his eyes, at his former comrade in arms to stop running, that he'd have to shoot him if he ran, all while aiming a slingshot at his old friend, whose arms were restrained by a hoop...I knew I had seen something important.
You would never hear the likes of Godfrey Ho mentioned in the same sentence as people like Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles, and Francis Ford Coppola, but I am about to.
Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles, Francis Ford Coppola and Godfrey Ho have all directed films.
-Alec Stamos
No comments:
Post a Comment